I have been well entertained with Johnson's biography, for which I
thank you: with one exception, and that a swinging one, I think he has
acquitted himself with his usual good sense and sufficiency. His
treatment of Milton is unmerciful to the last degree. A pensioner is
not likely to spare a republican, and the Doctor, in order, I suppose,
to convince his royal patron of the sincerity of his monarchical
principles, has belabored that great poet's character with the most
industrious cruelty. As a man, he has hardly left him the shadow of
one good quality. Churlishness in his private life, and a rancorous
hatred of everything royal in his public, are the two colors with
which he has smeared all the canvas. If he had any virtues, they are
not to be found in the Doctor's picture of him, and it is well for
Milton that some sourness in his temper is the only vice with which
his memory has been charged; it is evident enough that if his
biographer could have discovered more, he would not have spared him.
As a poet, he has treated him with severity enough, and has plucked
one or two of the most beautiful feathers out of his Muse's wing, and
trampled them under his great foot. He has passed sentence of
condemnation upon Lycidas, and has taken occasion, from that charming
poem, to expose and ridicule (what is indeed ridiculous enough) the
childish prattlement of pastoral compositions, as if Lycidas was the
prototype and pattern of them all. The liveliness of the descriptions,
the sweetness of the numbers, the classical spirit of antiquity that
prevails in it, go for nothing. I am convinced, by the way, that he
has no ear for poetical numbers, or that it was stopt by prejudice
against the harmony of Milton's. Was there ever anything so delightful
as the music of the Paradise Lost? It is like that of a fine organ;
has the fullest and the deepest tones of majesty with all the softness
and elegance of the Dorian flute: variety without end, and never
equaled, unless perhaps by Virgil. Yet the Doctor has little or
nothing to say upon this copious theme, but talks something about the
unfitness of the English language for blank verse, and how apt it is,
in the mouths of some readers, to degenerate into declamation. Oh! I
could thrash his old jacket till I made his pension jingle in his
pockets.